Crime & Safety
Lots of Excitement ... But NO Explosions
Homeowners find dynamite in corner of an old shed.
Joe Benkoski and his brother have been working on dismantling the old shed for a week or more. With a roof that has been sinking and sides that have been warped for years, they have been taking down the boards while sorting through wood, remnants and stored goods to see what was salvagable and what was trash.
Monday, while moving some old furniture stacked in a corner, they . About 20 sticks of dynamite. Enough to make a noticeable difference in the landscape if detonated.
The home is referred to as the Harrison homeplace, built in around 1940. Mimi Tarpley-Benkoski spent lots of time there when her grandmother lived in the house and she and Joe moved there about 20 years ago. Lots of acreage and outbuildings including a red barn were built over the years for livestock and for storage. Mimi immediately called Sheriff Berry in the . The dispatcher told her they'd really never received a call reporting "found dynamite" in her years with the office.
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Sheriff Berry related that in the 1970's and earlier, the family was in the grading and construction business and felt the dynamite was probably left over from that time period. "It was perfectly legal to have it back then," he said. Mimi suggested that perhaps it was even from the time when Lake Oconee was built; her grandfather and uncle were part of that project.
According to protocol, the UGA Police Department Bomb Squad was dispatched to the scene. Oconee County Sheriff deputies and firefighters from High Shoals were there for the finale. Deciding that the old dynamite was too unstable to move - the nitro was leaking out of the box according to accounts - it was doused with diesel fuel. A slow, controlled burn of the product ensued and once the dynamite was consumed, along with the rest of the shed, the firefighters extinguished the flame.
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Though there was no imminent danger of explosion from the dynamite, once the furniture began being moved and the material was being moved, the chance of ignition would have been greater. According to Berry, if that had happened, the explosion would have "leveled everything."Β